tures; "Teufelsdröckh himself being one of the loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to be said: L'age d'or, qu'une aveugle tradition a placé jusqu' ici dans le passé, est devant nous; The golden age which a blind tradition has hitherto placed in the past is before us. But listen again.

"When the Phenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying? Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have already, been licked into that high-eddying flame, and, like moths, consumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious beards will get singed.

"For the rest, in what year of grace such Phenixcremation will be completed, you need not ask. The law of perseverance is among the deepest in man. By nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen solemnities linger as ceremonies, sacred symbols as idle pageants, to the extent of three hundred years and more, after all life and sacredness had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the Phenix death-birth itself will require depends on unseen contingencies. Meanwhile, would Destiny offer mankind, that after, say two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-creation should be accomplished, and we find ourselves again in a living society, and no longer fighting, but working, were it not, perhaps, prudent in mankind

to strike the bargain?"

Thus is Teufelsdröckh content that old sick society

should be deliberately burnt (alas, with quite other fuel than spice-wood!); in the faith that she is a Phenix; and that a new, heaven-born young one will rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of indicator, shall forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, say or think: From a Doctor Utriusque Juris, titular Professor in a university, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, society, bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind), but books, tobacco, and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his benefactress; and less of a blind trust in the future, which resembles that rather of a philosophical fatalist and enthusiast, than of a solid householder paying scot and lot in a Christian country.

CHAPTER VI.

OLD CLOTHES.

As mentioned above, Teufelsdröckh, though a Sansculottist, is in practice probably the politest man extant. His whole heart and life are penetrated and informed with the spirit of politeness; a noble, natural courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like sunlight, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds; nay, brightening London smoke itself into gold vapor, as from the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what

earnest, though fantastic wise he expresses himself on this head:

"Shall courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? In good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from high-breeding, only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights, I discern no special connexion with wealth or birth; but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due from all men towards all men. Of a truth, were your schoolmaster at his post, and worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbour's schoolmaster; till, at length, a rudevisaged, unmannered peasant could no more be met with than a peasant unacquainted with botanical physiology, or who felt not that the clod he broke was created in heaven.

"For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hammer, art thou not ALIVE; is not this thy brother ALIVE? 'There is but one temple in the world,' says Novalis,

and that temple is the body of man. Nothing is holier than this high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch heaven, when we lay our hands on a human body.'

"On which ground, I would fain carry it farther than most do; and whereas the English Johnson only bowed to every clergyman, or man with a shovel-hat, I would bow to every man with any sort of hat, or with no hat whatever. Is he not a temple, then; the visible manifestation and impersonation of the Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a

Divinity; and too often the bow is but pocketed by the former. It would go to the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, in these times); therefore must we withhold it.

6

"The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those shells and outer husks of the body, wherein no devilish passion any longer lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of man: I mean, to empty, or even to cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do reverence; to the fine, frogged broadcloth, nowise to the straddling animal with bandy legs' which it holds, and makes a dignitary of? Who ever saw any lord my-lorded in tattered blanket, fastened with wooden skewer? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade of hypocrisy, a practical deception; for how often does the body appropriate what was meant for the cloth only! Whoso would avoid falsehood, which is the essence of all sin, will perhaps see good to take a different course. That reverence, which cannot act without obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free course when they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo worshippers, the Pagoda is not less sacred than the God; so do I, too, worship the hollow cloth garment with equal fervor as when it contained the man; nay, with more, for I now fear no deception, of myself or of others.

"Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, John Balliol, reign long over Scotland; the man John Balliol being quite gone, and Tabard' (Empty Gown) remaining?

only the Toom. What still dig

nity dwells in a suit of cast clothes! How meekly it bears its honors! No haughty looks, no scornful

gesture; silent and serene, it fronts the world; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The hat still carries the physiognomy of its head; but the vanity and the stupidity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike; the breeches, in modest simplicity, depend at ease, and now, at last, have a graceful flow; the waistcoat hides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst now dwells not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking cares and foul vices of the world; and rides there, on its Clothes-horse; as on a Pegasus, might some skyey messenger, or purified apparition, visiting our low earth.

"Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of civilized life, the capital of England; and meditated, and questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan broth; and was one lone soul amid those grinding millions; often have I turned into their Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awestruck heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty suits, as through a Sanhedrim of stainless ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their silence; the past witnesses and instruments of wo and joy, of passions, virtues, crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of good and evil in the prison called Life.' Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded Jewish highpriest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, summons them from the four winds! On his head, like the Pope, he has three hats, a real triple triara. On either hand are the